Subtext Deal

LORD POLONIUS
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,And that your grace hath screen'd and stood betweenMuch heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.Pray you, be round with him.

HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET


The two plot to get as much information from Hamlet as possible. Polonius believes that Hamlet is going crazy over Ophelia

HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.


Hamlet questions the Queens motives for marrying her husband brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!

The Queen begins to understand that she has sinned and it is her fault.

HAMLET
What's the matter now?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?

HAMLET
No, by the rood, not so:You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.


Hamlet is sarcastic and knows his mother is beginning to understand why he is upset with her.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;You go not till I set you up a glassWhere you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?Help, help, ho!

Hamlet has become very violent in his tone and attitude. The queen thinks that she may be harmed.

LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies

Polonius belives the queen is at risk and comes to her aid. Hamlet stabs Polonius through the cutian under the impression that it is the King.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET
Nay, I know not:Is it the king?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!

HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,If it be made of penetrable stuff,If damned custom have not brass'd it soThat it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Hamlet again shames his mother for marrying her murdered husband's brother. Hamlet attempt to humiliate her.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongueIn noise so rude against me?

Again the Queen tries to plead with Hamlet by reminding him that she is his mother.

HAMLET
Such an actThat blurs the grace and blush of modesty,Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the roseFrom the fair forehead of an innocent loveAnd sets a blister there, makes marriage-vowsAs false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deedAs from the body of contraction plucksThe very soul, and sweet religion makesA rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:Yea, this solidity and compound mass,With tristful visage, as against the doom,Is thought-sick at the act.

Hamlet is disgusted with the queens immoral acts against his slain father.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

The Queen tries to play innocent by not understanding Hamlets accusations.

HAMLET
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.See, what a grace was seated on this brow;Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;A station like the herald MercuryNew-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;A combination and a form indeed,Where every god did seem to set his seal,To give the world assurance of a man:This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:

Hamlet tries to make the queen remorse her husband by reminding her of his qualities and his impact on their lives.

Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?You cannot call it love; for at your ageThe hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,And waits upon the judgment: and what judgmentWould step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,Else could you not have motion; but sure, that senseIs apoplex'd; for madness would not err,Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'dBut it reserved some quantity of choice,To serve in such a difference. What devil was'tThat thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,Or but a sickly part of one true senseCould not so mope.O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shameWhen the compulsive ardour gives the charge,Since frost itself as actively doth burnAnd reason panders will.

Hamlet speaks of the contrast between the two brothers to further guilt his mother. His speech almost brings him to tears but yet he is still bitterly angry at his mother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more:Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;And there I see such black and grained spotsAs will not leave their tinct.

Hamlet's words have finally struck a cord with his mother. She finally begins to realiaze how much she has sinned.

HAMLET
Nay, but to liveIn the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making loveOver the nasty sty,--

Hamlet is disgusted with his mothers actions. He describes thier unholy marriage.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAMLET
A murderer and a villain;A slave that is not twentieth part the titheOf your precedent lord; a vice of kings;A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,And put it in his pocket!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!

The Queen is finally completely broken down from listening to Hamlet's words.

HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches,--
Enter GhostSave me, and hover o'er me with your wings,You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

Hamlet looks to the ghost with deep respect and admiration. He falls to his knees as if it were an angel.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!

HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go byThe important acting of your dread command? O, say!

Ghost
Do not forget: this visitationIs but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:O, step between her and her fighting soul:Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:Speak to her, Hamlet.

The ghost see how Hamlet has affected his mother with his words. She is in deep remorse and the ghost feels for her now.

HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is't with you,That you do bend your eye on vacancyAnd with the incorporal air do hold discourse?Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,Upon the heat and flame of thy distemperSprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;Lest with this piteous action you convertMy stern effects: then what I have to doWill want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?

The queen believes that her son is mad. She thinks that he may be irrational and unstable.

HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET
Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!My father, in his habit as he lived!Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

Hamlet is staring at the ghost as if it was truly his father.
Exit Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:This bodiless creation ecstasyIs very cunning in.

HAMLET
Ecstasy!My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,And makes as healthful music: it is not madnessThat I have utter'd: bring me to the test,And I the matter will re-word; which madnessWould gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;And do not spread the compost on the weeds,To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;For in the fatness of these pursy timesVirtue itself of vice must pardon beg,Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

Hamlet tries to convince his mother that he is not crazy and that his words and actions are true. What he is saying is what he truly believes and is not his irrational thoughts.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET
O, throw away the worser part of it,And live the purer with the other half.Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;Assume a virtue, if you have it not.That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,That to the use of actions fair and goodHe likewise gives a frock or livery,That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,And that shall lend a kind of easinessTo the next abstinence: the next more easy;For use almost can change the stamp of nature,And either [ ] the devil, or throw him outWith wondrous potency. Once more, good night:And when you are desirous to be bless'd,I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
Pointing to POLONIUSI do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,To punish me with this and this with me,That I must be their scourge and minister.I will bestow him, and will answer wellThe death I gave him. So, again, good night.I must be cruel, only to be kind:Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.One word more, good lady.

He is again trying to appear clam and collected in front of his frightened mother. He does not want her to dismiss his previous words as the words of a mad man. Hamlet does not want to appear to be insane.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?

The queen beings to believe her son and sees his rationality.

HAMLET
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,Make you to ravel all this matter out,That I essentially am not in madness,But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?No, in despite of sense and secrecy,Unpeg the basket on the house's top.Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,To try conclusions, in the basket creep,And break your own neck down.

Hamlet makes his final attempt to convince his mother to leave the king and that Hamlet still cares for his misguided mother. Hamlet also wants her to keep everything a secret. His tone is calm and collected, with a sense of urgency and importance.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,And breath of life, I have no life to breatheWhat thou hast said to me.

The queen tries to reassure her son, and to regain his trust. She wants him to know that she once again believes in him and in his guidance.